Mortal Fear. Greg Iles
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Название: Mortal Fear
Автор: Greg Iles
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Приключения: прочее
isbn: 9780007546084
isbn:
He smiles conspiratorially and brings a warning finger to his lips. His eyebrows shimmy up and down as he says in a stage whisper: “Shhhh. The walls have ears.”
When I stare blankly, he adds, “But then their ears have walls, so perhaps it doesn’t matter.”
“Are you telling me you think this waiting room is bugged?”
“Why not? Lenz works for the FBI. They could bug this room in the time it took you to wake me up.”
“How do you know how long that took?”
“Touché.”
“What’s the computer for?”
“Keeping up with developments, of course. Baxter just got the court order to do the trace in Wyoming. He must have blackmailed the judge. I think it’s a standard FBI tactic.”
“Has Brahma logged on again?”
“Once, about an hour ago, but Baxter didn’t have the court order then. He was only on for a couple minutes. They did manage to trace digitally back to the Wyoming phone company again. Lake Champion.”
“How do you know that?”
Miles smiles with satisfaction, then replies in a vintage Hollywood Nazi accent: “I haf my sources, Herr Cole.”
“What about the kidnapping? Rosalind May. Anything on that?”
“Nada. By the way, I didn’t know you had a mole among my faithful.”
“What are you talking about?”
He smiles again. “How else could the FBI have found out about Rosalind May?”
“Don’t you care about these women, Miles?”
“I care about all women.” Suddenly he is whispering so that I can barely hear. I sit beside him.
“They’re going to call one of us in there soon,” he says. “Why don’t we make a little deal right now? I say nothing to Lenz about you, you say nothing about me.”
This shocks me more than anything I’ve seen or heard yet. “You think you have to spell it out like that? You think I’d tell these people anything about you?”
His lips narrow in a shadow of the smile Jesus must have given Peter when he prophesied the disciple’s betrayal. “Humans do strange things under stress, Harper. Why don’t we just shake hands on it?”
I look down at the proffered hand and surprise myself by taking it.
“You want to grab a bite to eat after this?” he asks lightly. “Tie on the old feed bag, as they say back home?”
“Sure. I want to find out what the hell’s going on with this manhunt.”
“Whoever goes first waits for the other. Cool?”
“Sure.”
“Mr. Turner?”
The receptionist has slid open her window, but she is seated, and I see only a tight black bun atop her head.
“Dr. Lenz will see you first,” she says in a husky, almost luminous voice. “Go through the door and down the corridor. The doctor is waiting.”
Miles stands slowly, looks through the billing window, and says, “You have spooky eyes.” Then he picks up his computer and his cellular phone and disappears through the door like a tall and undernourished White Rabbit.
When the receptionist finally calls my name, Miles has not yet reappeared. Perhaps Lenz wants to talk to us together. As I get up and move toward the door that bars the office proper, I turn to get a closer look at the receptionist.
She is no longer there.
The door leads into a short hallway carpeted in royal blue. To my left is the empty receptionist’s cubicle, at the end of the hall another door. I open it without knocking.
Arthur Lenz is seated behind a cherry desk in a worn leather chair much like the one my father used in his medical office. But Lenz smells of cigarettes, not cigars. And his office is spartan compared to the Dickensian clutter of my father’s sanctum sanctorum.
My first thought when Lenz looks up is that I pegged him wrong in New Orleans. There he seemed a handsomer version of William F. Buckley Jr. Now, seated silently behind the ornate desk with his iron-gray hair and gold-rimmed spectacles, he seems to have morphed into a more sinister character—Donald Sutherland in one of his heavier roles. Lenz gives me a perfunctory smile and motions me toward a sleek black couch that reminds me of an orthodontist’s chair.
“Did you transport Miles to an alternate dimension?” I ask.
He looks puzzled. “Here are your printouts,” I say quickly, dumping the contents of my briefcase on the center of his desk.
Lenz gives the laser-printed pages a quick scan, then slips them into a desk drawer. “I was about to have some tea sent in,” he says. “Care for some?”
So this is how he means to play it: two supercivilized males sitting here sipping tea. “Got any Tabs?”
“Tabs?”
“You know, the drink. Tab. Tasted shitty in the Seventies, now it’s just palatable. That’s what I drink.”
The psychiatrist’s mouth crinkles with distaste. “There’s a vending machine in the building next door. I suppose I could send my receptionist over for some.”
“Fine. Normally, I’d be gracious, but since you’re the one picking my brain, I insist. I need some caffeine.”
“Tea has caffeine.”
“But it ain’t got fizz.”
Lenz pushes a button on a desk intercom and makes the request. It reminds me of the old Bob Newhart Show. I almost laugh at the memory.
“What’s funny, Mr. Cole?”
“Nothing. Everything. You’re wasting time talking to me. Your UNSUB could be out there killing another woman right this second.”
“Yes, he could. But you don’t seem to grasp the fact that you and Mr. Turner are the only direct lines into this case. And as for wasting time, I frequently spend hours interviewing janitors or postmen whose only connection to a case may be that they walked past the crime scene.”
I don’t respond to this.
Lenz smiles like he’s my favorite uncle or something. “I know the couch seems camp. But it does tend to concentrate the mind.” He takes a pencil from the pocket of his pinpoint cotton shirt and СКАЧАТЬ